Chapter Five
Jean-Luc couldn’t believe he’d found her. Okay, technically, she’d found him, but semantics. After weeks of searching, here she was, leaning over him dressed like a spaceman. Wasn’t exactly the reunion he’d pictured, and he certainly hadn’t planned to be flat on his back, feeling like a whole Mardi Gras parade had danced across his body. But still. She was here. He could reach out and touch her, know she was alive and safe.
He did just that, reaching out his good arm and trailing his fingers across the front of the weird mask shielding her pretty face. “What’s with all this, ma belle?”
Then he noticed the tears rolling down her cheeks. He tried to sit up, but the fight had drained the last of his energy. He dropped uselessly back into the mud, which actually felt lovely. He hadn’t realized how hot he was until he felt the cool mud against his back.
“Don’t sit up,” Claire said and placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
A large black man knelt by her side. “Do you know this man?” His accent was musical Nigerian, but his English diction was perfect. Jean-Luc guessed he’d been born here, but educated in either the U.K. or the U.S.
Claire glanced over at the newcomer. “Yes. He’s a friend. We need to move him back to the hospital, but we have to be careful. Keep him quarantined. Can you find something to use as a stretcher?”
“He’s infected?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“What?” Jean-Luc tried to sit up again as the big man moved away, but again failed. Merde, he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt this horrible, and he’d had some pretty epic hangovers in his day.
Claire leaned over him. The tears were rolling freely now, dripping onto the inside of her mask. “This is a hot zone. Everyone in this camp died of an unknown hemorrhagic virus and you’ve been exposed. How long have you been here?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t remember exactly. Time had blurred and his brain had just slammed on the brakes at the words “hemorrhagic virus” and “you’ve been exposed.” He was infected?
Well…fuck.
“This is important. Try to think,” Claire urged. “When did you arrive? Before or after these people died?”
He shook his head again and that seemed to clear away some of the fog. “Before. I knew you were here. Because of the virus outbreak, I knew you’d be here and I came looking.”
She gave a tight smile. “That was reckless.”
“Tell me about it.” His teammates had warned he’d die in Bumfuck, Africa, if he went chasing weak intel. Wouldn’t they love to know they’d been right.
And, hell, what about Marcus? Had he been infected when they were separated? Was he dying in agony somewhere in the jungle? Because judging by how Jean-Luc felt now, this was going to be agony.
He suppressed a cough and turned his head to scan the camp. “I figured if I found the nearest WHO or MSF field hospital, I’d find you, but these assholes ambushed our vehicle. They thought they were going to ransom us to some big oil company for money.”
“Us?”
“Marcus Deangelo. A teammate. A friend. He came with me. He wanted to find you, too.”
He saw her brow crinkle, and couldn’t blame her confusion. She’d never met Marcus, so why would he risk his life to save a stranger?
“Marcus has his own reasons,” he added before she could ask.
She nodded as if that was explanation enough for her. “Then what happened?”
“We were separated during the ambush. I need to find him. If he’s sick, too…”
She covered his bad hand with her gloved one. “I’ll ask around as soon as we’re back to the hospital. What happened after the ambush?”
“They put me in a cell.” He pointed to the building with his good arm. Claire turned to look. The dead guard had started rotting in the heat and rain and had ballooned. Just the memory of the smell had bile rising up in Jean-Luc’s throat. “Then they started dying. Just dropping like flies. The guard…he was sick—coughing blood all over everything, his nose bleeding. He was delirious, but he kept talking to me, taunting me, telling me about how much money I was going to make them. Then he just slumped over and he was gone.”
“How did you get free?” Claire asked, still staring at the guard’s body.
It had to be obvious. “I dug under the bars enough to reach him and pulled him over.” A lump of sickness rose in his throat and he had to look away. He could still feel the man’s dead flesh sloughing away under his hand with each tug. “I got him close enough to take the key.”
He’d vomited in the mud once he was free, but he left that part out. It wasn’t exactly sexy. Then again, neither was dying of a hemorrhagic virus.
Huh. He’d lived his entire adult life a man-whore, and now he was going to die celibate thanks to that curse the voodoo queen had laid on him. Now he’d never get the chance to break it.
He’d never get a chance with Claire.
Merde. He’d really, really wanted that chance.
The big man returned with a makeshift stretcher, which basically amounted to a tarp attached to two questionably sturdy pieces of wood.
Claire gazed up at the guy. “Thank you, Dayo.” Then she leaned over and tried to smile. It was strained. “Your ride is here.”
He took one look at it and sat up. “Nope. I’ll walk.”
“Don’t be stubborn,” Claire chided. “You need to conserve your energy. You haven’t had any proper nutrition in days. You’re dehydrated, you vomited—”
So she had noticed that. Damn.
“—and your body is fighting a war right now,” she finished. “You’re not walking anywhere. You’re getting on that stretcher.”
He grinned at her, even though he felt like screaming. But his mamere had always said that humor could relieve any ailment, and he didn’t have much else to cling to at the moment. “I love it when you go all Dr. Dominatrix. It’s hot.”
Claire was not amused. Her lips thinned as she stood up and pointed at the “stretcher.”
He pushed to his feet and walked over to the tarp like a good boy. And, okay, she was right. He wasn’t as strong as he wanted to be. By the time he lay down, his head swam with dizziness. Claire must have noticed the sudden sheen of sweat on his forehead, but she said nothing, only made sure he was tucked into the tarp then nodded to the big guy. He felt them lift him and closed his eyes. All this time, he’d thought the weakness plaguing him was due to a lack of food and water. He’d found both after his escape, but he hadn’t been able to keep anything down.
No wonder, since he was dying and all.
Fuck.